Merry Christmas!

Since we are poor we aren't sending the card out but it made it on the blog so that's something! Here are our  13 highlights of the year. 

1. We got married!!

2. We moved into our first apartment

3. Went to the family ward then switched to a married ward

4. We went on a cruise to Mexico!

5. Our cousin Travis and his wife Holly moved next door to us!

6. Jamie got a promotion at work and became the office manager and supervises all student staff. 

7. We camped, a lot! (Jamie learned how to survive in the wilderness with no bathroom)

8. We started the big brother big sister program and have become best friends with our little bro, Tommas.

9. We got to see my family multiple times throughout the year, which we loved!

10. Garrick got Jamie to try Tilapia, Chicken, and Turkey (no vegetarian in the family now)

11. We survived 2 weeks apart! (that really is an accomplishment!)

12. Colby and Kelsi got married, Dallas and Lauren got engaged, and Michael and Janette got engaged!

13. Garrick solidified his major and starting working towards his degree

Christmas Time

Because this is our first Christmas as a married couple we thought it would be so fun to make a Christmas card! So I asked my friend from work if she wouldn't mind taking a few photos for us and then I enlisted the skills of my talented sister Carrie to turn it into a card. Here are a few of my favorite pictures we took on Saturday. 

Our Christmas card is still to come!

November

This month has come and gone so stinkin fast! I can't believe that November is over and Christmas time is here already! We were so grateful for Thanksgiving and the little break we got from school, we were able to relax and catch our breath before the craziness of the end of the semester. During our little time off I realized how much we really did this month, no wonder the November flew by!

We made our gratitude trees with our lil bro Thomas, the activity was such a success! It was so fun to think what we're grateful for. Some of the things on my list included Garrick, heaters, and our home. Some things on Garrick's list were oxygen,  his brain and flirting with his wife. 

 Becoming gun owners was another exciting thing that happened to us. Garrick has loved having a gun, he feels in complete control when it comes to protecting our family. 

We also attended the Marine Corps ball this month, it was so fun! We dressed up, ate at the Joseph Smith Building which was beautiful, and hung out with good friends all evening. It was even better going this year since we're married (but everything is better when you're married).

Garrick has been volunteering with Toys for Tots with the Marines.

 Here he is at Toys R Us with his good friend Chad. 

Going to Nickle City was another really fun activity we did with Tommas. It was his first time going and he loved every minute. Garrick and I love this place a lot so it was a win win for everyone. We even wanted to go back after we took Tommas home, unfortunately homework won that fight. 

The other night we had a stakeout of sorts. I  had a class assignment that involved sitting in Krispy Kreme's parking lot for an hour gathering data on cars idling in the drive-thru. We felt like cops the whole time, especially while we ate donuts. It turned out to be really fun!

Unfortunately Garrick and I both lost our phones temporarily during the Thanksgiving festivities so we have no pictures to document our holiday. But we had 2 amazing dinners both Wednesday with his Mom and Thursday with his brother's family. We feel so grateful to have so much in our lives, we are truly blessed. 

               

6 months down!

This past weekend Garrick and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary! We weren't planning on doing anything too special, just a group date at BYU with free food and Despicable Me 2. I had signed up a few days before and they told me I was good to go. Well 6 pm we show up at the Wilk and wait in line for a good 10-15 minutes to get our food but when we got to the door we discovered that I had only signed up for the movie, the dinner tickets sold out a week ago. We were frustrated and explained that no one had clarified that with me, they simply said sorry charlie, show up for the movie at 7.

 Feeling rejected we wondered out the door and brain-stormed what we should do until the movie started. We decided that we would just walk to the Creamery and grab a bite and run back to catch the movie! We quickly ran to the creamery and were fortunate not to have a line (there's always a line on the weekends). We ordered and sat at the bar. After 20 minutes of making fun of the waitresses we were getting upset that our food wasn't ready yet Garrick who was pretty ticked off at this point, asked the supervisor about it. No food had been made for us, they had lost our order. 

Frustrated, Garrick simply asked for a refund and we walked out. Garrick gets pretty annoyed with inefficient and  inept people, so after 2 rejections he was fed up with BYU campus and wanted to get a real burger from real workers not byu freshman. It was pretty entertaining watching him get upset. We ditched the movie and started driving to 5 Guys but on our way there I called and they had no veggie options for me. So he had to settle on Smashburger. We get to Smashburger and after waiting around a few minutes Garrick has a great idea of leaving me to order here while he quickly drove to 5 Guys to get his favorite burger. 

Finally we make it home and sit down with our anniversary movie playing, How to Lost a Guy in 10 days (we love that movie), I open my burger and I see beef. Of course this would happen! By the time I discovered this, Garrick had eaten half of his already so I ate fries until he was done and then he ran back to Smashburger for me. He came home with a new burger and our money back. On top of the burger he came home with ice cream and flowers. What a guy! All in all it proved to be an adventure of a night. I'm so grateful for my best friend, we have so much fun. Married life is good. 

Saturday Mornings

Garrick and I have really been enjoying our weekends, they are often filled with anything and everything other than homework, thus making it so great. Each Saturday morning we try to do something with our little brother, Tommas. We've had so much fun going to the library, playing soccer, being outside on the playground, throwing the frisbee, getting donuts and drinking hot chocolate. We've learned so much about him and about interacting with younger kids. It has been so fun for me to watch those two play and see how all boys are the same no matter their age! Garrick is so good with him, I'm so excited to see how great of a father he'll be. Recently we carved pumpkins, introduced him to the world of Harry Potter, and ate delicious pumpkin seeds. 

Life is Crazy

Life is crazy, busy, stressful, and plain difficult! These past few weeks have been super stressful for both Garrick and I. Midterms are the worst! But even though this has been our hardest semester yet it has been by far the best! Basically marriage rocks. Seriously, it is the best. thing. ever. It helps that I have the best husband in the world!

This guy carries me to bed when I fall asleep on the couch, builds shelves for me at 1 in the morning, arranges and rearranges our home until I decide its just right, belts out Celine Dion with me in the car, and most importantly, he loves me even when I'm emotional and crazy (which is more often than I'd care to admit). I don't know what I would do without this guy! School is much more bearable when you get to come home to your smoking hot husband, who also happens to be your best friend, every night. Life is so good. 

                                                             

Meet Tommas

Garrick and I joined the Big Brother Big Sister Program right after we got married and waited to be matched with someone for months. Finally, last week we were assigned and met our little brother! This is Tommas, he is 6 years old, is very smart and has tons of energy. Last weekend we hiked the Y together, all he talked about when we met him was hiking so for our first activity we took him and he loved it! We are so excited to get to know him better and try to be his role models. 

                                                            

My Mom

My mom is simply incredible. She is my cheerleader, my comforter, my role model, my best friend. She has been there for me always; through every bad day and every new experience. She is beautiful, kind, smart, caring, and strong. She is everything I hope to become someday. Happy birthday mom! I love you to the moon and back!

Back to School

Man oh man, what a crazy couple weeks it has been! One word to sum up the last two weeks, school. It's funny that whenever you're in school you just want to be out but when you're out of school you want to be in it. I guess it's just one of those things that we can never fully appreciate while it's here. But between Garrick and I's schedule we have been going going going. Thank goodness for the weekends otherwise I don't know how we'd make it through! Of course the weekends have been full of homework and tend to fly by way too quickly.

Garrick is in his sophomore year studying Biology and he has his plate full this semester. He is on the go from 8am until 11pm. His schedule consists of classes, work, study groups, frequent visits to the chem labs, volunteering, and lots of studying, that's just during the week! His weekends are full of homework, new church calling and his marine responsibilities. And he does all of this while balancing his needy, high maintenance wife! But as busy and stressed as he is, he is loving how much he is learning and gets more excited everyday about his future in medicine. He works so hard and is so dedicated in everthing he is involved with.

I am in my junior year studying Health Promotion, I decided to take a little more heavy workload so I'm balancing high credit hours and my new office manager responsibilities at work. I knew that Garrick was going to be busy with homework this semester so I knew I would need to keep myself busy. The high credits didn't scare me, but now that I'm trying to keep each class straight and find the time to complete my never-ending amounts of homework, it's been a bit of a struggle to find my groove, my routine. I think my long days are bad, 8am-7pm but then I look at Garrick's and I don't know how he does it!

I'm just grateful that we're married now so we at least get to have a little pillow talk each night, even if that's all we get some days, it is wonderful and keeps me going. These past few weeks have made me realize just how good we had it all summer, and the memories we made will get me through the school year.

                                                             

Cruisin

On Land

On Sea

Garrick and I were fortunate to be able to go on one last vacation right before school started. We considered it a second honeymoon and our first real vacation. We went on a 4 night 5 day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico and Catalina with our good friends Race and Aly. We were basically taken care of for a week and it was wonderful. Lots of eating, sleeping, hot-tubbing, game playing, show watching and more eating were done over those four days. Between the room service and formal dinners, we felt pretty high class. Now we're home and back to the ole grind of work and getting ready for the school year to start. 

Happy Birthday!

  Words cannot describe how much I love this kid. It's been 4 months since we were sealed together forever and each day I feel like the luckiest girl alive. He is my best friend, my partner in crime, my mac to my cheese, my knight in shining armor, the man of my dreams. I love you more and more each day. 

Happy 24th Gar-bear!

                                                            

The Great Outdoors

Garrick and I have had the best time playing outside, he has turned me into a lover of the outdoors. These are just a few of the great camping trips that we've had this summer. 

                                                                

Summer Time

The other night Garrick and I were talking about how much fun we've been having and how we couldn't have asked for a better summer. Seriously  it has been the best! Pretty soon we'll be consumed with homework, midterms and endless studying. So we are glad we both decided to make this summer one where we do whatever we want. I'm so incredibly happy we have been able to spend so much time together and are fully enjoying our worry free summer.